Can Drones Replace Manned Fighter Aircraft?

ATTACK OF THE DRONES!

To quote the baddie in IRON MAN 2: 'Drone Better'. Was he right, or very wrong? 

There is no question that it makes sense to try moving toward drone dominance, for a number of reasons:

1: Saving Money?  Drones are probably, prima facie, a less 'taxing' investment that training a person / army of said and still having to provide hardware to match. 

2: Preventing lost lives? Seriously. It seems logical to presume to some extent, that robotics in the air = 'safer' than human counterparts. Why risk the lives of pilots in a cockpit, when it is both plausible and efficient, to avoid that needless deployment? 

3: Stealth. Presumably, if one wishes to win wars, surprise remains key, right? As in a weapon in war itself. And, by removing or at least, reducing, significantly, any human element in the fight, one  thereby also minimises risk of blowback / leaked intel and so on? Silent -ish drones. Programmed. Honed. Dropped in. With the sole threat being the capture /reverse engineering of the tech? Very tempting, for sure! Plausible deniability! 

4: Reduce Collateral Damage? Again, this is a natural jumping point, If we include pilots AS collateral damage, you have just reduced the casualty rate or capture and kill risk. Yes, I, as a civilian, do not believe that those in the field of combat necessarily expect 'death' as an outcome. Ergo, if they die, one could argue they are as 'innocent' as those on the ground. The only truly 'guilty' ones are those who sent the combatants into war? Take down a drone; or better still, have drone to drone combat as the deciding factor in a war and you have THE closest scenario to simply playing a Chess game or Arcade event, albeit for the fate of the world. 

AND YET..Bit like the whole 'should we clone dinosaurs' thingie (answer: no, even if we could, which we cannot, at least not yet)..the big question with drone v manned air combat is whether, yes, you guessed it, we SHOULD aim to make the human element redundant /extinct. 

Here's why not. At least, not TODAY:

1: War is, for now, an HUMAN endeavour /fault. That means humans made the decision to declare it, fight it and navigate its outcomes. Estimates of the situation, maintenance of aims: ALL human! Drones can, of course, to an extent, approximate some of that dynamic. But it's very early days, still. And in any event..

2: Would you WANT an entirely drone based fleet, in air /at sea/on ground? No! That is indeed the stuff of dystopian, sci-fi/pseudo-science nightmares. SKYNET! TERMINATORS! END OF THE WORLD STUFF! Now, whilst we could, ultimately, design things with in built defences against such outcomes, one cannot rule those out, either. Primal fears and imagined nightmares can and sometimes do play into the hands of science-fact, at its most scary. Let us not hand over the keys to the bomb, so to speak? At least, not YET, anyway. 

3: Human responses, understanding, decision making under stress, ingenuity, creativity and so on. Yes, drones are a product OF those qualities and therefore, arguably, replicate the assets associated. But it is still like settling for second best. A silver medal when you need a purple heart. Manned responses, reflexes, team building, competitive spirit, patriotic drive, survival instincts, lust for glory, need to win and so on: Do not ever take those things for granted! Whilst one could argue that they are a catalyst in war, they also help, fundamentally in conflict resolution. Remember: not all air combat is about blowing stuff up or hitting the enemy. It is a fundamental string in the peacekeeping bow; from no fly zones through to aid delivery. 

4: As things stand? Human led efforts are simply SAFER. Reference, at a glance: The United States Air Force's UAV accident rate of 0.9 per 10,000 hours is significantly higher than the manned aircraft accident rate of 0.2 per 10,000 hours. The operation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) necessitates a large number of people.

IE:

5: For now, anyway? And yes, perhaps, for the foreseeable future: Manned air combat / craft = safer, more economical, efficient and just BETTER than drone based equivalent. 

GO WATCH TOP GUN: MAVERICK! They address this question.

And? for a real rather than merely 'reel' world development of defence based tech? I came across these helpful chaps in Bristol.